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Comics to Consoles: Part II - When Good Comics Go Bad

Summary: Marvel's merry band of mutants have been in more than their fair share of video games, both good and bad. One of the earliest X-Men games to hit home consoles was this entry from publisher LJN. For those who may not remember, LJN was best known for releasing crappy games based on the popular license of the day. X-Men on the NES was no exception.

Why It's Bad:X-Men is a top-view action game, similar in gameplay to Commando or Gauntlet. The difference being, of course, that those games are good. The game includes a roster of six X-Men, each with his or her own set of powers. Two characters are then chosen to play as at the start of each of the game's five levels. In a two-player game, this isn't so bad, as each player takes control of one of the X-Men. In single-player games, though, I was forced to rely on one of the most idiotic computer A.I.'s to control my teammate in the level. Because of this, I had to spend more time protecting my teammate than fighting the actual enemies.

Even for a first-generation NES game, the graphics in X-Men were pretty bad. First off, the main characters could only really be differentiated by their unique color schemes. The enemies in the game didn't have the benefit of this luxury, so they all came across like little more than threatening blobs. The background graphics were almost painful to look at. Many times I had to take a break just to take some aspirin and give my eyes a rest. As bad as the graphics are in X-Men, the sound is even worse. Raking fingernails against a chalkboard in a room full of screeching cats actually sounds more soothing than anything this game has to offer. In the end, the only good thing that can be said about LJN's X-Men game is that no other X-Men game since has even come close to matching the sheer magnitude of its failure.